Running Your Website on Ektron? 11 Reasons You Should Migrate to EPiServer

Do you have your website running on Ektron? You might not lose your product support as yet but you are surely going to miss the benefits from all new advancements that EPiServer could bring into your platform. EPiServer features are not just an upgrade over Ektron’s, it’s a better product overall. It’s much more powerful, comes with lots of in-built features and offers simplicity to both developers as well as content authors. It has a continuous release process for newer updates and also gives you the freedom to bring all your content, marketing and commerce needs into a single platform.

So why should you be migrating to EPiServer? Here are 11 good reasons that will help you analyze the potential benefits.

Faster and More Secure Platform – EPiServer runs on ASP.NET MVC rather than ASP.NET web forms. The improvement puts it in the segment of a web app and not a website. Though for business users this statement might not mean much, overall what it means is that sites which run on EPiServer are faster and more secure over their Ektron counterparts.

Robust Content Personalization – Many Ektron users have not been able to apply personalization to their content effectively due to the additional CMS configurations involved. On the other hand, EPiServer comes with simple out-of-the-box content personalization capabilities, giving site owners an opportunity to provide great value to their users depending on their preference, behavior etc.

Maintain your existing integrations – EPiServer comes with an improved version of Digital Experience Hub. So if you are an Ektron client currently utilizing Digital Experience Hub to integrate your CMS with third party systems, you don’t have to worry about re-implementing all your integrations. The newer version maintains all your existing integrations as it is.

On Page Editing and Managing media assets – Media asset management in EPiServer is much simpler than Ektron. For an editor, it is present on the page while editing and allows him to drag and drop the media content directly onto the page. Another difficulty that content authors in Ektron face are determining how content will appear before it is published. In EPiServer, editors get a robust on-page editing experience that allows content authors to experience exactly how the content will be displayed before publishing. Additionally they will also be able to preview the entire sections of the site based on screen dimensions, device or personalization.

Commerce Features – EPiServer is one of the first products in the market to offer commerce features along with content management. So if you have a commerce need and are using some other platform currently, it can be a good thought to look into the EPiServer commerce features which will allow you to carry all your CMS, Marketing and Commerce activities from the same platform. The advantages are process simplicity and easier maintainability of systems.

Continuous release cycle – With a continuous release cycle in place, EPiServer addresses any security concerns in a much better way than in Ektron. Security updates and other features are made available at a regular schedule assuring site owners that their sites are safe from any kind of security threats

Attracting long tail organic search traffic – So far Ektron users didn’t have any option to improve their site’s page rankings without applying some custom logic. EPiServer’s platform offers an in-built capability that extends the reach of your content by grouping it together around key topics for your business. These groups are automatically presented as Google-friendly landing pages in response to a long-tail search and thus helps in improving the page rankings significantly.

Content reusability with blocks – Reusing an already developed component has not been that simple and user friendly in Ektron. However with EPiServer, this challenge can easily be addressed with blocks that provide a simple way to reuse components / functionality in majority of the business use cases.

Link Management – Managing page relationships in Ektron where they are managed much loosely has sometime posed to be a challenge for business users. EPiServer solves this problem by providing an easy option to find out in which all places a page is referenced across the sites. It clearly tells you all references for a page and prevents you from deleting any page by mistake.

No limit to editor accounts – EPiServer allows unlimited CMS editors by default. So now it’s possible to create as many accounts as you need to update the site whenever needed.

It’s a rebuild, not a migration – EPiServer utilizes a different technology than Ektron, so migrating to EPiServer from Ektron will need a rebuild of the code. This will provide an opportunity for the business to analyze their current requirements and push in any additional feature that they might find useful during the rebuild process.

Aspire Systems is a global technology services firm serving as a trusted technology partner for our customers. We work with some of the world’s most innovative enterprises and independent software vendors, helping them leverage technology and outsourcing in our specific areas of expertise. Our services include Product Engineering, Enterprise Transformation, Independent Testing Services and IT Infrastructure Support services. Visit www.aspiresys.com for more information.